Flames, Gunfire, 1 Dead Robber

A gunman who robbed a Dana Point bank Friday was shot and killed by sheriff’s deputies in a hail of gunfire as he tried to run from a burning apartment building in which he had barricaded himself, officials said.

The bizarre crime spree began in a strip mall with a lunchtime bank holdup and ended minutes later and blocks away in a quiet hillside neighborhood, with more than 100 fired rounds sending startled residents running and ducking for cover.

“It’s pretty scary,” said Jennifer Higginbotham, who was drawn to her balcony by the staccato report of gunshots and screaming sirens. “It’s like we’re in the middle of L.A. It’s not Dana Point, for sure.”

The robber, who was not immediately identified, was shot once in the head and several times in the torso, authorities said. He was pronounced dead at Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in nearby Mission Viejo.

The ordeal began at 11:22 a.m. at a Bank of America branch near a supermarket at Pacific Coast Highway and Del Prado Avenue, when someone inside tripped a silent alarm. Nearby merchants and shoppers with cell phones simultaneously called 911 after spotting a well-dressed man walk into the bank wearing a mask.

“He looked like a cartoon character,” said a pizza deliveryman who gave his name only as Bernie. He said he watched the masked man climb out of a car and walk into the bank. Soon, people inside had their hands up in the air, he said.

The first sheriff’s deputy to arrive watched the masked man run from the bank and jump into the passenger side of a white pickup parked nearby, carrying a semiautomatic gun and a bag of money, Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona said.

Deputies chased the pickup for several blocks before it stopped and the gunman fled on foot. As he ran toward a two-story stucco apartment building, deputies fired at him, Carona said.

Deputies immediately took the driver of the pickup into custody. They released him after determining late Friday that he and his truck had been commandeered by the robber.

Meanwhile, the robber had broken into a first-floor apartment, where he piled mattresses against the door, then set them on fire.

As flames ripped through the building and smoke billowed, dozens of deputies, special-weapons officers and snipers closed in. They called to the robber to surrender as fire crews arrived.

In the apartment directly above the one in flames, resident Nancy Griffin said she was getting ready to leave for the library when she heard the commotion, looked outside and saw police everywhere.

“He’s below, he’s below!” the 65-year-old Griffin said the officers yelled to each other. A deputy knocked on her door and told her to evacuate.

“Then we heard gunshots. It sounded like Vietnam. They said, ‘Get back in, get back in. Get on the floor.’ I crawled into the kitchen,” she said.

A few minutes later, Griffin said, she was hurried out the front door. One deputy shielded her with his body and lowered her over a balcony to another standing on a trash bin below.

At some point, Carona said, the robber fled the apartment, carrying the semiautomatic, forced out by the fire and smoke that charred much of the complex. Griffin and other residents were left homeless by the blaze.

Authorities offered only sketchy details of the gun battle. But on a videotape shot by neighbor Vicky Steele, 10 seconds of unbroken gunfire can be heard off-camera. Then the robber--by then unmasked, with a shaved head and shirtless in jeans and white shoes--can be seen crouched in some bushes behind the apartment complex.

Appearing to be unarmed on the videotape, the man popped up as if about to run, then gunfire resumed. The man toppled over a small retaining wall, landing on his stomach on the pavement nearby, as gunfire sounded again. A voice heard on the videotape orders officers to hold their fire, but shooting soon resumed.

“It was just like a ricocheting all over,” the 39-year-old Steele said.

Deputy Jimmy Rubio was treated and released from the same hospital after shrapnel or another fragment was removed from his face.

On the tape, once the gunfire subsided, the robber can be heard telling police he was hit. As officers approached with guns drawn, the robber, whose face was covered in blood told them, “I’m going to die.”

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Times staff writers Jason Song, Mai Tran and Nancy Wride contributed to this report.